


What You Value Most

by seki



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Not A Very Serious Fic, Post-Game, spoilers for the whole game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9149113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seki/pseuds/seki
Summary: Lunafreya has waited a long time for Noctis, and perhaps she's not quite prepared for the reality of the man he's become.





	

Luna thinks it's a miracle, a blessed miracle.

The afterlife is real, and in many ways, not unlike the real world. Some things are predestined -- she'll have Noctis, if she waits. She's even given a choice; one possession, to take with her to the beyond.

The wedding dress, designed just for her and one of the most beautiful things she's ever seen, is her first choice, then she remembers the jewelled hairpiece that some brave, unknown Kingsglaive soldier died to bring her. She promised she'd keep it always. She wavers on it, despite the promise. The notebook nearly comes instead, but in the end she thinks she'll leave that for Noctis, for when he needs it. She takes the hairpiece, wears it when she faces down the Hydrean, and is grateful for the real, solid weight of it amidst the insubstantial illusions of the afterlife.

She has Pryna, as company, and her parents, and even Ravus -- sweet Ravus, he's here, and while Ravus would never bend to apologies, he's remorseful for his trust in the Empire, his lack of trust in Noctis. It's a reconciliation, all the more rewarding because there aren't really any lies here.

Luna waits. Ten years, she waits, though time doesn't quite work how it used to, and then Umbra arrives and curls up by her feet in the ruined ghost of her childhood home, and she knows then: Noctis will be there soon. She spirits herself to Insomnia, to the citadel. She can't quite see the battles that Noctis is undergoing, only the little deaths of daemons that blossom in the spirit plane like fireworks as her King wends his way towards the Usurper.

She flits inside the crystal. She's been here before, to witness Noctis suspended there in thoughtless absorption of the crystal's powers. It's an odd place, somewhere between death and life, and his time spent in there is why Noctis can't really live properly again when he leaves. Ardyn's spirit hoves into view, not diminished by his death, wavering between normality and corruption. Luna has been dead long enough to know how to fold the fabric of this world into a barrier between them, to hide herself from him as he waits for Noctis. He could reincarnate, she thinks, watching him. But he's done with life. If Noctis can promise him oblivion, Ardyn will let him deliver.

They're all waiting for Noctis, one way or another.

Noctis doesn't take very long to come through, and when he does, Luna takes her chance to use her powers to try and heal the corruption. It doesn't quite do that, but it does _something_ , breaks the curse so that Noctis can shred apart the spiritual form that holds Ardyn's effort. He does that, and then his form rips apart.

Luna panics, and flits back to the afterlife, here in Insomnia, and waits, uncertain. She was never _promised_ Noctis, she realises. Maybe she can't hope--

And then Noctis is there on the throne, grown, his eyes dark with maturity and the crystal's touch. He wears the wedding outfit she chose for him. Luna looks down at herself, and with a thought, she's in her beautiful wedding gown. It's not _real_ ; insubstantial as a thought. But it wraps around her, whisper thin and graceful, and she feels like a bride in it.

There's space for her, she realises, next to Noctis.

She sits, and waits for her King -- her chosen husband -- to take her hand.

He smiles at her, her handsome prince again, the premature lines of the Crystal's echo smoothed into youthfulness. He's beardless, too, but he's kept his longer, unstyled hair, a combination that makes him ageless to her eyes, somewhere between his youth and his adulthood. He reaches inside his coat, and pulls out a little square of glossy paper. A photo. He hands it over to her, and she takes it with careful fingers.

She stares, blankly, dimly aware that Noctis is removing his wedding gloves. This must be what Noctis chose to bring through, the single item, precious to him.

A photo of this? _This_ is his most precious possession?

She sets it down, schooling her face to acceptance, and turns back to face Noctis just as he reaches to cup her face in his hands. It's a gentle kiss, quite loving, appropriate for their first kiss as a married couple.

When he lets go, Luna musters up a smile, and turns away. She lowers her head onto her arm, as if to sleep, and closes her eyes. She hears Noctis make a faint snuffling noise of amusement, but he doesn't protest it.

She waits, and when she thinks Noctis is asleep, she opens her eyes again. The photo is right there, in her line of sight, and she heaves in a deep, disappointed sigh. She was resigned to the compacts she had to make, to the toll it took on her, to the sacrifice she had to make. All of that, and this, this is the reward she's being given.

Married to Noctis, forever.

She's going to spend eternity with a man who thinks a photo of a pot of Cup Noodles is the most precious treasure he could possess.

Oh no. This, on top of fishing for whole stretches of days at a time and the terrible puns Gentiana reported back to her?

It's going to be a very long eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> No, but really. Luna's expression is the same solemn, yes-dear face no matter what photo you show her, and that just kills me.


End file.
